Lovers. Not a soft word, as people thought, but cruel and tearing.

Peoples lives, in Jubilee as elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing, unfathomable-deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum. . . . What I wanted [to write down] was every last thing, every layer of speech and thought, stroke of light on bark or walls, every smell, pothole, pain, crack, delusion, held still and held together-radiant, everlasting.

I read a book called The Art of Loving. A lot of things seemed clear while I was reading it but afterwards I went back to being more or less the same.

What she wants to do if she can get the time to do it, is not so much to live in the past as to open it up and get one good look at it".

We say of some things that they can't be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do-we do it all the time.

Never underestimate the meanness in people's souls... Even when they're being kind... especially when they're being kind.

This is the way you look at the poorest details of the world resurfaced, after you've been driving for a long time -- you feel their singleness and precise location and the forlorn coincidence of you being there to see them.